I sell silver at the temple,

waiting for you to come,

 

to upend my table.

I have prayed long for a miracle

 

body that withstands

the holy people so I can continue

 

to provoke you until

you show yourself to me

 

I am a mustard seed who tricks

myself into disbelief.

 

Look at the grains under my fingernails:

I have faith. O mountain,

 

O silver body, O morning

light shuddering on the water’s tight skin.

 

What life I have wasted

with folded hands—

 

∞

Rajiv Mohabir is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Cutlish (Four Way Books 2021, Finalist for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry), and translator of I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara (1916) (Kaya Press 2019) which received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant Award and the 2020 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. His hybrid memoir Antiman (Restless Books 2021, Finalist for the PEN Open Book Award, and the 2022 Publishing Triangle Randy Shilts Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir), received the 2019 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing.